Whether a Liberal win threatens national unity depends on Albertans, Danielle Smith tells conservatives

OTTAWA — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says whether a re-elected Liberal government would pose a threat to national unity depends on how Albertans react, emphasizing that Liberal Leader Mark Carney has existing “damage” to repair. Smith was speaking Wednesday after delivering a speech and participating in a fireside chat at the Canada Strong and Free Network, an annual conference in Ottawa featuring speakers and leaders within the conservative movement. This year’s event coincides with the federal election, at a time when successive public opinion polls show the Conservatives either tied with or trailing the Liberals. Speaking to the crowd, Smith joked those in the audience should instead be out door-knocking and expressed support for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre winning the election, which she told reporters afterwards should come as no surprise. Several days before the election was called, Smith laid out a list of demands she says must be fulfilled by the next prime minister at the risk of facing an “unprecedented national unity crisis” if they are not. She presented it after having met with Carney shortly after he was sworn in as prime minister. The list included repealing a suite of measures the Liberals introduced, including the federal law known as Bill C-69, the Impact Assessment Act, which critics say has created a intractable approval process for energy projects; scrapping the cap on oil and gas emissions; as well as eliminating the net-zero electricity grid and electricity vehicle mandates. While Carney has pledged to speed up approvals for energy projects, he has said he would not repeal Bill C-69, which the federal Conservatives have pointed to as why voters who want to see more pipelines built should not believe him. “You can’t ride two horses at once,” Smith told reporters on Wednesday. “You’ve got to decide.”

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Asked whether she believes a Liberal win would threaten national unity, the premier said it all depends. “It depends on what the reaction is. If they don’t address those issues, then we’re going to have to see what the reaction of Albertans are,” Smith said. “But I can tell you that having 10 years of having our economy beaten down by not being able to to have those kinds of investments have soured Albertans on the idea of a Liberal government, so it’s going to be required after the election to repair some of that damage.” Former Reform Party leader Preston Manning warned in an recent opinion piece that Carney poses a threat to national unity, given the longstanding grievances those in Western Canada have towards the federal Liberals over it energy policies. He wrote that, “voters, particularly in central and Atlantic Canada, need to recognize that a vote for the Carney Liberals is a vote for Western secession — a vote for the breakup of Canada as we know it.” Poilievre distanced himself from those comments when asked about them on the campaign trail last week, saying he believes the country needs to be brought together instead. Concerns about sovereignty have been heightened in recent months as U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that he wants Canada to become his country’s “51st state,” comments which all federal leaders have rebuked. The Liberals have taken aim at Smith during the campaign, which concludes on April 28, with Carney recently joking to a rally crowd that it would be a “bad idea” to send the Alberta premier to fight against Trump’s tariffs. Critics have blasted Smith for choosing to travel south of border to speak with right-wing figures such as Ben Shapiro about the ongoing trade war, a decision she defended before Wednesday’s crowd as being part of an effort in diplomacy to speak with conservative influencers in hopes of getting through to the Trump administration. “We shouldn’t be cheering on a trade war,” she told reporters afterwards, adding her office is receiving complaints about the retaliatory tariffs Canada has placed on the U.S. after it imposed 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminum. National Post staylor@postmedia.com Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here. Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our politics newsletter, First Reading, here.